secrets ecological farming revealed – hubert_luns

8/6/2019 Secrets Ecological Farming Revealed Hubert_Luns

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The Eleventh Commandment- secrets of ecological farming -

Mschberg

This article is about a dietary and farming law, the eleventh commandment, that is not to be

found in the Bible, though it does belong there. It seems that there are quite a few Christians whohave decided to keep to the biblical health laws, convinced that they are intrinsically good. However

in current society much more is needed for a healthy life. What is the Hebrew equivalent of fast

food? I have as yet been unable to discover it. Fast food means empty food, food deprived of its

force and of its function as giver of life and friend of humanity. It would doubtless have been

forbidden in the book of Leviticus if it had existed at the time.

This is a subject close to my heart. In my student days I was, even then, what outsiders name a

health freak. But I never saw myself like that. I never had long hair nor wore sandals. It was the

1960s, the era of flower power and suchlike, and of the Beatles, with their song Yellow Sub-

marine, an unmistakeable reference to LSD, a drug you could get high on and go tripping. The

disadvantage of the health cults is that the relevant literature and the atmosphere in which you land

takes you before you know it into the New Age movement with its aauuummm-resounding ash-

rams. Understandable, therefore, that Christians are a little wary. But the basis assumption nothing wrong with that: Live healthily.

1 A cultural and political question

And yet there are Christian initiatives, particularly in agriculture, such as I found in Dr. Hans

Mller (1891-1988), himself a deeply religious man. (1) I was on a course on the Mschberg in

the Swiss Canton of Berne in 1978, a period when organic agriculture was still meeting strong

opposition from the political world because it was alleged to be unscientific. (2) Mller was

then well into his eighties, bubbling with energy. We became friends. After having functioned as

Nationalrat in the Swiss parliament for 19 years, he collaborated with the doctor and microbio-

logist Hans Peter Rusch (1977) in further developing on a scientific basis the method (3) dis-

covered by his wife, Dr. Maria Mller (1965) and in setting up an organisation to spread theknowledge. In the autumn of 1984 I wrote a note of encouragement in their journal. The journal


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was written for farmers and had a curious name: Kultur und Politik, based on the notion that the

food problem, from production to the industrial processing and further to the preparation of food

and eating habits, does not depend on the determination of a method but on acceptance by the

public, and is therefore a cultural and political issue. The saying is Man ist was man esst (You

are what you eat), but the reverse is also true: we eat food and have it prepared according to our

fundamental opinions. Eating is an intimate occurrence, something fundamental.

Dr. Hans Mller Frau Dr. Maria Mller - Bigler

2 Every tiny piece of life is prepared to serve us

We can thank Rusch for the notion of the cycle of living substance as basic assumption for all

our biological thought and activity: Man and animal () are directly or indirectly dependent on

plants, and plants in their turn depend on the soil, to which the remains and excretions of all

living beings return, thereby closing the circle of substance and energy as is usual in nature. He

also stated: Life only proceeds from life and never from mineralisation (i.e. from artificial fer-

tiliser). He developed a microbiological soil test, the Rusch test, that determines the composition

and quality of living substance in the soil, something that cannot be determined with purely che-

mical methods. The well-known modern writer Herwig Pommeresche puts it in stronger terms in

his book Humussphre: Biology has given up in the scientific development of agriculture. The

technological agricultural sciences unfortunately have nothing in common with ecology. This

realisation is sufficient to justify our speaking of tremendous incompetence.

The soil is teeming with life. Agricultural methods should take advantage of it instead of stam-

ping it out. Professor Norman T. Uphoff of the Cornell University, USA, introduced the System

of Rice Intensification, first pioneered by a Jesuit priest, Father Henri de Laulani. The system is

based on the soils endemic or natural capacities. Uphoff wrote in the 2009 October Issue of theScientific American (underSoil Welfare):

Plants could not have been growing in the earths soils for more than 400 million years

without the soils micro organisms. Ironically, the use of inorganic fertilizers can suppress

roots' and microorganisms' production of the phosphatase enzymes that are essential for

making phosphorus available for plant use. This inhibition is similar to the way that adding

inorganic nitrogen to the soil diminishes the production of nitrogenase by plants and

microorganisms to sustain their fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, which becomes available

for plant nutrition. There is usually ten, twenty, sometimes even thirty times more

phosphorus in the soil than the amount in available forms that plants can readily utilize.

The large amount of unavailable phosphorus is continuously, though relatively slowly,

converted into available forms through the activity of soil microorganisms, many of which

are known as phosphobacteria.


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In the autumn 1984 issue of Kultur und Politik, Rusch proposed the following:

Biological truth is not discovered through prior calculations but comes so to say from

coincidence. In reality, then, we only discover it if the Spirit, who stands above us, co-

operates with us. Science without belief no, that does not exist, not under any name. Be

respectful of life every tiny piece of life is prepared to serve us. We cannot go on

destroying life unpunished with pesticides and suchlike in order that we might remain inlife. (4) And though a doctrine such as this cannot be proved with a scientific law, it is

nonetheless true.

The Eleventh Commandment

Thou shalt inherit the holy earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and pro-ductivity from generation to generation. Thou shalt safeguard thy fields from soil erosion,thy living waters from drying up, thy forests from desolation, and protect thy hills fromovergrazing by the herds, that thy descendants may have abundance forever. If any shallfail in this stewardship of the land, thy fruitful fields shall become sterile stony ground orwasting gullies, and thy descendants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from off

the face of the earth.The Eleventh Commandment, written and broadcast over the radio by Walter Clay

Lowdermilk in Jerusalem during June 1939, was dedicated to the Palestinian Jewish vil-lages whose good stewardship of the earth inspired this idea.

In 1938 and 1939, Walter Lowdermilk, an assistant chief of the US Soil ConservationService, made an 18-month tour of Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East tostudy problems of soil erosion and land use. The research was done by his organisation atthe request of a congressional committee. The main objective was to gain information inthe interest of soil conservation in the United States.

Rusch turned out to be destined to be appointed head of a gyncological department. To the dis-

appointment of his mentor, Professor Von Jaschke, he volunteered for military service when theSecond World War broke out. He did this out of a feeling of duty. He served as a staff doctor with

the German air force and was posted to Sicily and Crete. After being captured by the Americans

he ended up in a camp in Ludwigburg, where he noticed that some prisoners were completely un-

affected by the diarrheic epidemics that raged there. This intrigued him a great deal: those unaf-

fected were always farmers. Along with the saying the bacterium is nothing, the nutrient is eve-

rything he came to the conclusion that it was the life force of their diet that protected them from

illness. He also noted that they always came from farms where primitive agriculture was prac-

tised. It was the start of a career that would make him famous forever.

3 The soil is our real capital

During his course Dr. Mller continually emphasised the enor-mous importance of the soil as bearer of the basic life force

(das Lebendige):

The farmer does not know the true value of his

enterprise. His real capital lies not in his buildings nor

even in his animals, but in the soil! That is where his

concern should lie. But who is? What we despisingly call

waste matter and excretions serve as food for the soil

organisms. All the farmer needs to do is to guarantee the

conditions under which they flourish. Within the layers of

soil the metabolism, a form of digestion, must take place

in such a way that none of the valuable residuals are lost.The formation of stinking gas means a loss of energy and

material that could have been used for the metabolic


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process. In the end, it is the bacteria, the moulds, the yeasts and other life forms, such as

insects and worms, that ensure that the plants arteries their roots can absorb the nutrients

that have been reduced and transformed into useful components. This all occurs in a coherent

process that we will probably never fully understand. And we do not even need to

understand it provided that we, the farmers, create the conditions under which it can happen.

Here a clear distinction is required between robic and anrobic processes (processes that

need or that dont need atmospheric oxygen). For this reason liquid manure should be spread

over the fields in dry weather, so that it does not penetrate too deeply into the anrobic

layers of the soil (see Appendix). Soil needs to be handled lightly, and certainly not flattened

with heavy tractors, nor should it be ploughed unless there are serious reasons for doing so,

since ploughing puts the robic processes under the ground and moves anrobic life to the

surface, thereby creating chaos with an enormous death toll among the life in the soil. True

enough, nature sets it all to rights once again, but in so doing, so that each soil stratum once

again fulfils its vital function first the processing of the waste products in the robic

biotope to be followed by further processing in the lower anrobic layers a great deal of

valuable time is lost that could have been invested in the production of vital nutrients

suitable for absorption. The crops in the fields that absorb the vital substances serve cattle

and humans as food to provide them with rude health, for life brings life forth in a never-ending round dance of giving and taking. (5) These words spoken by an inspiring speaker

still resonate in my ears as if it were yesterday.

An historical overview

Courses are still given at the Mschberg and Kultur und Politiek is now on its 62ndannual edition (www.bioforumschweiz.ch). The Ernte-Verband in Austria and Bioland inGermany are based on the Mller-Rusch method. Despite Mllers objections (he did notwish to be on an unequal footing with biodynamic agriculture) an umbrella organisationcalled BIO SUISSE was established in Switzerland with the successful trade name ofKnospe from 1981. In 1989 Mllers organisation too joined BIO SUISSE. It can be said that

thanks to Dr. Mller at present 98% of Swiss alternative farming is organic-biological, andis by any measure economically subsistent (an annual subsidy is granted of approx. 500per hectare). It is absolutely erroneous that modern agricultural techniques, such as taughtat the University of Wageningen in The Netherlands, are essential if the worlds populationis to be supplied with food! In 1978 the Mller-Rusch method in Switzerland accoun-ted for 1/3rd of one percent. A great deal has changed since then. Organic farmingis currently practised on 1/7th of the total area farmed in Switzerland plus Liech-

tenstein, the highest proportion in Europe; in addition 80% of the farmed land issubject to ecological standards laid down by law. Biodynamic agriculture was developed inSwitzerland in the 1930s, in the Goetheanum, the centre of the New Age apostle RudolfSteiner (1861-1925). This method has been forced into the background in its country oforigin. Things are different in The Netherlands, with the trade name DEMETER. The Ml-ler-Rusch method would appear to have emerged victorious in Switzerland, Aus-tria and Germany on the grounds of the solid economic argument and the trans-parency of the method, which is supported by a way of thought that closely mat-ches up with the Christian view of life.

We can thank Frau Mller for the varied applications of the mineral-rich primitive rock meal (a

kind of finely ground marlstone) since she used it from the first, following an ancient farming

tradition. During my course we went on an excursion to a mixed farm, of which I have retained

an unforgettable memory. In the stall with something like thirty cows it smelt almost as fresh as

outdoors. The cows' excreta fell into small ditches where the water was kept in motion with small

propellers so that all the components of the manure were kept in regular contact with the atmos-

pheric oxygen. Thanks to the ground marlstone (a handful per cow per day) in this biosphere all

the decay components in the manure were retained, including even the volatile substances. Youcould hang over the ditch with your nose and still not smell any cow manure, proof that even the

volatile substances had been captured.


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Bauernheimatschule & Hausmutterschule Mschberg , Grosshchstetten, established in 1932

Now a hotel for courses and seminars serving organic-biological agriculture

4 The intestinal flora constitute the soil of our existence

When we examine the organic-biological agriculture (also called the Mller-Rusch method),

we can draw a striking comparison with the human digestive process. A major part of the process

happens before we take in the food. After that, it continues in the mouth and the stomach and

bowels. Did you know that the intestines/bowels of an adult are inhabited by 100,000 billion bac-

teria (the intestinal flora) ten times as many as the cells of our body? The fecal matter consists

mostly of microbial bodies. (6) Our true health capital is to be found in our intestines/bowels!

That is the basis of our existence. It is there that the final change takes place whereby the food we

ingest is turned into vitalising substances that can be directed to our bloodstream. Healthy intes-

tines mean a healthy body. And the opposite is also true: just as the soil can become sick with

poisonous organisms that hinder the strong growth of plants, so can our intestines attack our

health. In order to enjoy good health all we have to do is the ensure the right conditions in which

the micro-organisms in our intestines and stomach can flourish organisms whose name (flora)is a little unfortunate since flora means plants

At birth a suckling has sterile intestines. The first organisms to settle there are robic bacteria, to

be followed later by the anrobic. In an adult only 1% are robic. The composition of the intesti-

nal flora is different in each individual. And it changes continually under the influence of envi-

ronmental factors and eating habits. The average human colon contains over 800 species of

microbiota and has no less than 5,000 to 35,000 different strains, including about hundred patho-

gens (that cause sickness). But before they can do their work, the balance between the different

microbiota is often disturbed by a consistently wrong diet that contains for example too many re-

fined sugars (as in soft drinks). It is only after our micro-ecological system is disturbed that harm-ful symbionts can grow out of all proportion; healthy intestinal flora is capable of keeping harm-

ful moulds and pathogenic organisms in check, an observation that set Dr. Rusch on the path to-


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wards organic-biological farming. The intestinal flora is a good example of symbiosis: A produ-

ces the nutrients for B, B for C, C for D and D for A. This also involves moulds. Moulds are

microbes that are not necessarily harmful. On the contrary: many moulds are necessary for life. A

tiny piece of blue cheese in baby food is extremely healthy.

Nature fights back: bugs devour GM Monsanto corn with a vengeance

By Tony Isaacs, Natural News - June 22, 2012

GM corn by Monsanto, designed to kill western corn rootworm, is reportedly being de-voured by those pests with a vengeance. Due to heavy reliance on the genetically modified(GM) crops, the tiny rootworm pest has overtaken fields, outsmarting the genetic engi-neering that was supposed to keep it away. The GM corn, launched in 2003, is engineeredto produce a protein, known as Cry3Bb1. It was engineered from a bacterium known as Ba-cillus thuringiensis, or Bt. In theory, rootworms ingest Bt corn roots in which the ingestedprotein ought to be fatal. However, recent reports indicate that pesticide-resistant root-worms are showing up weeks earlier and act more voraciously than ever.

Eliezer in a reader comment: In the fullness of time the germ or insect will defeat anyintrusive attempt in nature to compensate for the degradation of its milieu. The recyclersof nature are only doing what they are designed to do: recycling defective and minerallydeficient organic material through the operation of the carbon cycle. The divinely appoin-ted system of law and order will prevail over scientifically induced chaos. As French micro-biologist Antoine Bchamp (1816-1908) stated: The milieu is everything, the germ (orinsect) is nothing, meaning, the microbe responds to defects or deficiencies of its habitat.The microbe or insect, by-en-large, passes by a healthy plant or body. Plant a garden, andthe life will come!

As already stated, a great deal of the digestion precedes ingestion. Who ever thinks of cooking as

being a way of digesting food (ever tried eating a raw potato?) and that the accompanying ingre-

dients are sometimes already partially pre-digested? The most important function of the prepara-

tion of food in the kitchen is pre-digestion. Taste is actually secondary, although a full taste canbe an indication of the nutritional value of the food. Processes comparable to the formation of

humus also take place with food, which is called fermentation. To take a few examples from a

long list: yoghurt is a form of pre-digestion (7), just like butter, cheese, sauerkraut and well-hung

meat (8). It is of course not only pre-digestion. In the fermentation process valuable nutritions are

created or augmented as well as vitamins. (9) And there are the fermented drinks such as wine

and cider. A product that should not be underestimated is sourdough bread. Grain products are

important since they constitute a major part of our nutrition. In the Jewish culture all meals are

bread-based, even the main course: meat and vegetables are extras. And that is how it will have

been in the Old Testament times.

Here the following remarks are not out of place. The previous sections could create an impression

that it is all so simple, but nothing is simple in Gods work. Thus beer is made from sproutingseeds and the unhealthy soybean becomes suddenly very healthy in form of sprouts. Brown (un-

husked) rice lies heavy on the stomach unless the germination process (in living rice grains) has

continued for one to three days just soak in water: the actual sprouting or putting forth of shoots

is later, so that it undergoes a transformation comparable with that of caterpillar to butterfly. Al-

though the adult human body easily absorbs milk, apple and grape juice, ordinary meat and

unsprouted rice, such products in an evolved state make a much greater contribution to robust

health, even if only due to their beneficial effect on the micro-ecological system of the intestines.

5 Not a makeable creation

It is fascinating to see how everything fits together, how Man participates in the cycle of livingsubstance, whereby the activity in soil offers a wonderful metaphor for the working of the intes-


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tines. Once you realise this, you are brought up short, since you then realise how the creator and

bearer of life has organised all of this. And of course, what I am now doing is committing heresy,

heresy against the notion of evolution. This theory assumes that everything has come into exis-

tence thanks to the competitive struggle between different species, causing the primitive life

forms to evolve into higher forms of life over billions of years, from the imperfect to the less im-

perfect. It is up to us to improve the world, to help coincidence a little. This is a self-congratulato-

ry challenge whereby Man believes that he has in some small way become God. But the basic

assumption is wrong. For the single-celled life of a bacterium is absolutely not that of an unde-

veloped life form! It is also a flagrant contradiction of Genesis 1:31: And then God saw every-

thing that He had made and indeed it was very good.

I would now like to quote from the well-known Artscroll Series:

Munk reformulates this verse as follows: And Elokim willed all He had completed to be

one entity, and this now became now apparent,() As the Vilna Gaon explains: Some-

thing can be good when fitted to another thing. The divine works of creation, however, are

good in themselves and also together with others () From the combination of these

elements arises a lofty and new character, which is not present in the parts but only in thewhole (called nowadays the emergent property). This verse includes the creation of those

destructive (and ill-making) forces (10)which, when viewed in context with the rest of

creation, are necessary and integral. (This is obvious because the expression) behold

always introduces us to something new that whereas each unit of creation was considered

goodin isolation, now when creation was complete and all of its units were perceived as

part of a whole, it was recognized as very good.

The extracellular matrix

Many micro-organisms do not live as the isolated cells we are accustomed to observe ascultured cells suspended in a fluid droplet, which condition does not reflect the microbialenvironment we commonly encounter in nature, where they adhere to various wetted sur-faces in organised colonies that form amazingly diverse communities. Bacteria grow in tinyenclaves, called micro-colonies, in an environment - the extracellular matrix - which theycreate for themselves and that consists of twice the volume of the bacteria themselves. Justas a fertilised egg gives rise to varied cell types during foetal development, with bacteria toothis differentiation takes place after they alight on a surface. They synthesise communi-cation molecules, reminiscent of the pheromones and hormones of insects and animals, ap-plied to co-ordinate the construction of micro-colonies within the framework of a sophis-ticated architecture. The design allows nutrients to flow in and waste products to flow out,inviting comparison to the circulatory systems of the higher organisms. In some biofilms,multifarious bacteria combine to digest nutrients that by a single type could not be fully ex-ploited. These observations suggest that what most biologists have long viewed as the lowlydeveloped bacterium, may in fact occupy a much higher rank in the scheme of life than wasever imagined.


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In the ways the medical world, modern agriculture and our food industry work I have seen as

leitmotif that the powers-that-be start from the assumption of a makeable world, preferably with

fantastic technological achievements, while there is no need of this. For example: the medical

world seems to have forgotten that the greatest contribution to public health has been and still is

improvement in personal hygiene, a system for providing clean water and a sewage system. A

start was made on the latter as early as in the 18th

century. My family speaks with pride of a cer-

tain Baron of Heemstra who saw to it that a sewage system was laid in Baarn and the surrounding

area. Such measures fit perfectly with the rules of hygiene that are prescribed in the Old Testa-

ment. Where today is there respect for Nature, whose dependent companion we are? Man should

fit in with the divine plan of creation; with all his efforts being put into serving rather than subjec-

ting, into arranging rather than controlling, and into managing rather than dominating. Instead of

which we have come to see Nature and ourselves as objects to be exploited, while we simply hap-

pen to be stewards. And as such we do not have the same rights as an owner. The rights of owner-

ship are with God. The highly civilised human no longer feels drawn to Nature. Going for a walk

or lying on a beach that he likes. Man has entered a tyrannical struggle against an almost de-

fenceless Nature. Man has become unnatural and no longer knows what is good for Nature, nor

for himself. And these things are interconnected: hence the modern gift of metabolic diseases,

which is not a punishment from God. He has not had to do anything: we do it to ourselves. Sincethe effects of a wrong way of life sometimes appear after generations (as some experiments

would seem to suggest) it is all too easy to speak always of genetic diseases if such is the case

as the cause of the illness. Whatever the case, the matter is too complex to seize with experi-

mental tests, since everything is linked together. We are now experiencing an in vivo experi-

ment, one that is being carried out world-wide. We cannot be too optimistic about the outcome.

6 No denatured food

In the years when I was concerned with my lifestyle and eating habits I believe I discovered a

number of rules governing a healthy way of life. First of all: Nature is our doctor and teacher. A

doctor serves to heal sicknesses, but things are a little different with Nature. Nature serves prima-

rily to keep us healthy or whole. This is also the main function of eating food. Whoever fails to

take this into consideration and makes gods of his taste buds and belly is setting himself up

against Gods order. Healing is related to the word whole and should really be called re-healing: once again making whole or complete or, to put it briefly to make holy (linguis-


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tically the words whole and holy are related). (11) Nature also helps to heal, but that aspect

though very important is not the object of our attention here. (A couple of interesting facts from

the Germanic languages In the Dutch word genezen (= to heal) the second component (nezen)

originally meant to maintain, to feed or to save. Now if the z in nezen is replaced with an r (a

not unusual transformation) we get the German word nhren (pronounced neren), which also

means to feed.)

The implication of Nature is our doctor and teacher, is first and foremost that we should appre-

ciate Nature for what it is. In the biblical book of Leviticus the following could have been written:

Thou shalt partake of no denatured food. It is, however, not easy to determine what denatured

food means. Genetically manipulated food definitely: the fact that we have not yet been able to

uncover its bad characteristics proves nothing, for it is a new science. And the category also co-

vers refined foodstuffs, known popularly as empty food.

The empty food category comprises sugar and pure starch, including white rice. But starch and

white rice are far better than sugar because they do not contain fructose of which only small quan-

tities should be ingested (granulated sugar is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose). As a side

dish white rice is perfect, but it should not constitute the main ingredient of our daily food. Everwondered why pure sugar and starch are scarcely subject to decay if at all? Even vermin does

not like it. And that says a great deal. Sugars and starch in their natural environment that is a

different story. Rancid food can also be considered denatured. Margarine also belongs to this cat-

egory because the trans-fats that it contains are harmful to our health. The way that vegetable oils

are hardened (hydrogenated) has nothing to do with natural! I have my doubts about the impar-

tiality of research trying to show that margarine is healthier than butter. With regard to white rice,

little children in poor families in Asia may go blind through vitamin deficiency because their pa-

rents feed them exclusively on white rice. But who cares? Now, as regards bread The usual

way of baking bread until the mid-19th

century was by using sourdough. Some enthusiastic rea-

ders will probably now wish to transfer to sourdough bread, but I warn you: you will be the worse

off because your digestive processes are not tuned to it. Such a thing requires a gradual change. A

vegetarian who suddenly starts eating meat and a carnivore who suddenly goes vegetarian willnot feel good. Every change needs adjustment. The rule also excludes the artificial sweeteners as

used in all kinds of soft drinks; aspartame is not good. (12)

The divine laws are accessible to reason

In the preceding pages (of Gods Banner) we have attempted to show that the Banner ofGod of which Psalm 60 speaks is none other than the free acceptance of the divine planwhereby reason makes efforts to discover and approach with respect the laws that governour Creation () The divine laws appear to be contained in natural matters and thus acces-sible to reason () In addition there is such a thing as divine Revelation which perfects thenatural laws by giving them a supernatural dimension that exceeds the powers of our

understanding () After having determined this, we would like to fix your attention on thesecond banner, the enemy banner that stands against Gods banner and is wrong to its verycore. This banner represents the revolt against God, the very rejection of God and thereforeof His plan and therefore too of the laws that lie enclosed in Nature. In the end it comesdown to a rejection of the truth, since in fact everything revolves around the problem oftruth. The rejection of truth does not necessarily express itself as an aberration, for suchcan be the result of an incorrect conclusion based on a wrong observation or thought pro -cess. It is the basic assumption itself of the unique truth that is denied, the reality-linkedtruth of the object in question. Those who gather under this other banner replace a reality-linked truth by a relative truth, one that always assumes a personal ideal that someone hasdiscovered in his own thoughts.

From Ltendard de Dieu (Gods Banner) by Daniel Raffard de BrienneLecture et Tradition, February 1988, p. 38


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7 Im fine

Nonetheless you will catch me occasionally eating white bread or a Chinese meal with white rice

and a chocolate to finish off. And you may see me drinking a Cola-Light (nice taste!), but I do not

regard such things as food and take them exceptionally. White bread (and what is known as

brown bread) is Sunday bread. Its nice to have a change of taste every now and then! But du-

ring the week I always eat sourdough bread. Its like with the Bible: whoever eats exclusively thewhite bread of the New Testament will suffer from anmia, since the basic spiritual food is and

remains the Old Testament. The Reformation movement ensured the necessary re-balancing here.

How is your health? you may ask me. Have you derived any benefit from your beliefs? Ans-

wer: my health is fine. More than nine years ago we left Hilversum (our adopted sons were then

twelve) and in all that time we have never visited a doctor (a dentist: yes) and also have never

used alternative medicine. I still remember the schoolteacher who was annoyed because our son

did not even know his GPs name. She regarded that as a negative sign. But we kept our mouths

shut. This does not prove I am right, but it does prove that we are doing nothing wrong. O yes, the

boys once caught the measles and then we had to call the doctor. Aspirins or paracetamol? Yes,

we use them, but that is all apart from the odd vitamin pill.

Hubert Luns

[Published in Profetisch Perspectief, Autumn 2007 No. 56]

The Cloud and the Tree,Mschberg


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Notes

In his struggle against organised godlessness

(1) As early as June 1933NationalratHans Mller and 15 other signatories submitted a motionin parliament in his struggle against organised godlessness in Switzerland. Although the motion(For the preservation of the cultural image of our country and for the protection of religious

peace) was passed with a large majority, it was never followed up.

Official recognition was difficult

(2) Writing in the jubilee issue of BIO SUISSE (25th/26th August 2001) Werner Schneider, Pre-sident of VSBLO / BIO SUISSE from 1981 to 1993, indicated a few high points in the history of themovement:

When in 1971 Dr. Hans Mller put in a request from the Bio-Vegetables Galmiz (in theFreiburg Canton) to the Confederations Food Committee that organic agriculture beaccorded official recognition, the scientific subcommittee was charged with the study of thequestion. Anyone who can remember the position of organic farming in the agriculturalworld of that time will not be surprised to hear that the answer was negative. Differences,said the subcommittee in 1974, cannot be determined and thus the concept of organicproduct in relation to food should be forbidden. Discretion prevents me from naming

the members of the renowned institute. Some of them later changed from Saul to Paul and note well without the aid of genetic manipulation! (Article title: Aus der Geschichte derBIO SUISSE: Fakten, Episoden und Anekdoten einer erfolgreichen Bewegung)

(3) Frau Dr. Mller wrote a book at the time that is still available: Bauern-Heimatschule mit derFreien Landbauschule fr organisch-biologische Wirtschaftsweise.

Soil, in a trough of death

(4) I am firmly convinced that life in the soil is so weakened after decades of doping that it willnot be long before it goes into its death throes and the disastrous state of the soil will becomeobvious to everyone. People will then speak of an incomprehensible phenomenon but for thestupid everything is incomprehensible.

A period of recovery is required

(5) We should not be persuaded that the transfer to organic-biological agriculture is without itsproblems. Wherever decades of soil exploitation have taken place we need to take a recovery pe-riod into account. Life is astoundingly resilient, so the recovery will take only a few years beforefarming once again becomes economic. Nonetheless, the Rusch test can show that sometimes acontinual improvement in the life of the soil continues to take place over decades.

The flora represents a virtual organ within an organ

(6) Resident bacteria outnumber human somatic and germ cells tenfold and represent a com-bined microbial genome well in excess of the human genome. () Bacterial density increases inthe distal small intestine, and in the large intestine rises to an estimated 10111012 bacteria pergram of colonic content, which contributes to 60% of fcal mass. Source: The gut flora as a for-

gotten organ by Ann M O'Hara and Fergus Shanahan - EMBO Reports # July 2006 (pp. 688-93).Collectively, the resident flora represent a virtual organ within an organ with a metabolic ac-tivity in excess of the liver and a microbiome in excess of the human genome. Source: The host-microbe interface within the gut by Fergus Shanahan - Best Pract. Res. Clin. Gastroenterology #Dec. 2002, 16-6 (pp. 915-31).

The first bacteria come via the mothers milk

(7) The lactobacillus and the bifidus bacteria are passed on to the infant via the mothers milk (Iread somewhere: the mother infects the baby) and they ensure among other things that themilk is turned into yoghurt. Types of yoghurt made in this way are available in supermarkets. Itdoes not take rocket science to work out that a yoghurt culture that fits a human being of its verynature is the better alternative.


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Beef too is hung to ripen

(8) It is not usual to hang meat (allow it to ripen) for a long time in the meat industry, mainly be-cause this drives up the costs of refrigeration. The fact that it is possible is shown by an adver-tisement for Fontijn High Quality Meat (Weesp, Netherlands): Our ripening cell, built accordingto American standards, has an optimum climate so that the meat ripens slowly in a naturalway. This is accompanied by a certain development of bacteria, so that the enzymes released en-

sure the correct breakdown of proteins. Controlled ripening over a period of one to four weeksmakes the meat exceptionally tender and easily digestible.

The infinite wonders of fermentation

(9) Pound for pound, fermented material will have more nutrition packed into it than the rawmaterial it came from because, aside from acting like miniature detoxification machines, microbesadd heaps of nutrients to whatever it is theyre growing in. Using enzyme power, single-celledbacteria and fungi manufacture all the vitamins, amino acids, nucleic acids, fatty acids and so onthat they need from simple starting materials like sugar, starch, and cellulose. They can thrive onfoods that would leave us horribly malnourished. But we are bigger than they are. When we eatyoghurt, real pickles, real sauerkraut or any food containing living cultures our digestive jui-ces attack and destroy many of the little critters, exploding their fragile bodies. Many survive andprotect us, but those who are digested donate all their nutritious parts to us. Though after the

fermentation process is finished, foods like wine and cheese no longer contain living organisms,they have been enriched by the life-forms they once housed; Wine has more antioxidants thangrape juice, and cheese more protein than the milk it came from. The little critters can acuallymake all the vitamins we need except D, and all the essential amino acids. And they have onemore trick up their sleeve. As if its not enough that they can free up minerals, preserve our food,manufacture vitamins, and clean up the nasty plant chemicals our bodies cant handle, once in-side your body they will literally fight four your life.

Taken from Deep Nutrition Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food by Catherine Shanahan MD andLuke Shanahan MFA Big Box Books, Hawaii # 2009 (p. 146).

What is evil?(10) The creation of factors in Gods creation that lead to decay and sickness could be regarded asevil by some. The working and the function of such factors is not easy to describe, but that is noreason to see them as evil; though sickness can perhaps be regarded as a consequence of evil.Andyet the Bible says that God made evil. If we see the relevant verses of Gen. 3:22, Is. 45:7-8, Lam.3:38-40 and Am. 3:6-7 in their mutual relationship, it appears that by giving us the freedom ofchoice God has created evil and also has foreseen it, but it doesnt make Him the instigator of thatevil. High and low are, like good and evil, coexistent halves that do not derive from one anotherbut are always there together. They are logically equivalent pair of opposites and the premise forany moral judgement. If, in the world to come, evil no longer exists, while - still realising what itis - we will not take it into consideration when acting.

(11) In the Germanic languages holy relates to whole. But in Greek and Hebrew the word forholy (hagios and kadash) is related to unstained and clean.

Artificial Sweeteners and its dangers

(12) As concerns the dangers of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners, one should read Exci-totoxins, The Taste that Kills (How monosodium glutamate, aspartame (Nutrasweet) and similarsubstances can cause harm to the brain and nervous sytem and their relationship to neurodege-nerative diseases such as Alzheimers, Lou Gehrigs Disease/ALS and others), by Russel L. Blay-lock, M.D. Health Press, USA # 1997. According to George R. Schwartz, who wrote the forewordand is the author of Bad Taste (1988), this is a landmark work, a milestone, akin to the remar-kable books by Rachel Carson published in the 1950s and I tend to agree. But to see that happenin the eyes of the public, first the power of the commercial empires has to be broken.

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Compulsory injection of manure

damages agricultural land

Not long after the publication of my article, there appeared some alarming reports in the Dutch press

regarding the damage caused by ignoring fundamental principles of agriculture.

- Wednesday 16th April 2008, in the De Telegraafnational daily

- by Richard van de Crommert

Wageningen The obligatory injection of liquid manure into Dutch fields must endquickly. It is damaging Dutch crops. The mineral and vitamin content is dropping as we

watch. This is the finding of the Stichting Milieubewuste Veehouderij (Environmentally

Aware Cattle Farmers Foundations), the Team Ecosys consultancy and Aquarius Alliance,

a collaborative organisation of farmers and scientists. The agricultural university of Wage-

ningen also believes that current practice is damaging the composition of life in the soil.

For the past fifteen years Dutch farmers throughout the country have been obliged by law to

inject liquid manure into the ground instead of spreading it above ground. The latter system

means that the manure is gradually absorbed into the soil. The muck spreader disappeared im-

mediately from our Dutch countryside. It is a measure unique to the Netherlands. When manure is

spread above ground, a substance such as cyanide gas, a component of manure, is immediately

neutralised by atmospheric oxygen. In the Netherlands it is neutralised by the oxygen in the soil,

so that oxygen disappears from the soil.

The community of creatures living in the soil changes when manure is injected. Earthworms, that

plough the ground and ensure the presence of oxygen in the soil, are killed. Moles leave the

scene. The ecological system is turned on its head. It is not just crops that suffer: our fresh Dutch

milk has lost its quality because of manure injection. The grass in the meadows is poor in mine-

rals and contains moulds and bacteria that can cause damage. It contains too much nitrogen. A

cow chewing the grass only produces ammonia. Lack of earthworms means that there are fewer

meadowland birds to be seen.

The government has never initiated studies to see what consequences the injection of manure has

on public health. It would now seem that the consequences are alarming. The national Consumer

Organisation states that it would seem that substances such as selenium are scarcely to be found

in our vegetables any longer. Selenium has proved effective against various types of cancer.

Currently one in three of the Dutch population has cancer. That is by far the highest proportion

in the world, states Paul Blokker of the Vereniging tot Behoud van Boer en Milieu (Asso-

ciation for the Preservation of Farmer and Environment).

Meindert Nieuweboer, a dairy farmer in Noord-Holland province, says: The soil is the plants

digestive system and constitutes the basis of all our food. And thus indirectly of our dairy pro-

ducts and meat.Marian Stuiver of the University of Wageningen, who graduated a few weeks

ago on the subject of the policy on manure, believes that the government should consider permit-ting the spreading of manure above ground, at least on a regional basis.


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If we go on like this (warns Blokker) we are endangering public health. The average

Dutch person lacks zinc, iron, selenium, copper and magnesium. And has a serious shortage

of Vitamin A. In many vegetables there is no Vitamin C any more. And here were talking

about crops grown in the open, such as cauliflower, carrots and endives. It has been removed

over the last fifteen years. Our greenhouse vegetables, such as tomatoes and peppers, are still

nutritious. The mineral and vitamin content of food has been going down over the whole

world, but it is happening more quickly in the Netherlands than anywhere else.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Thursday 19th April 2008 (by: Co Scholten)

The remarkable loss of vitamins from vegetables has caused alarm in parliament. The political

parties VVD, CDA and SP are asking for a clarification from the relevant ministers Verburg

(Agriculture), Cramer (Environment) and Klink (Public Health). Im shocked, was the reaction

of VVD member Janneke Snijder.

This week a number of organisations, quoted in De Telegraaf, linked the injection of liquid ma-

nure in the soil and the falling mineral and vitamin content of vegetables such as carrots, cabbage

and chicory. In the early 1990s, under pressure from the environmental lobby, farmers abandoned

the muck spreader in order to combat ammonia emissions and thus the formation of acid rain.

From the start many farmers warned that manure injection damaged the life in the soil, says

Snijder. It didnt help a bit. People were focused exclusively on the aim of ammonia emissions

and so injection was adopted without a blink. Now some real basic study needs to be done.

Minister of Agriculture Verburg denied the story via a spokesman. Its like the storks-and-babies

study. The fact that the number of storks in the countryside has diminished and that fewer babies

are being born doesnt demonstrate cause and effect, said the spokesman. Moreover he pointed

out that manure is not injected into the soil for crops grown in the open field but it is worked into

the soil by ploughing (as if that made any difference!).

Land and Horticulture Organisation LTO wished to state that fresh vegetables are still the food

with the greatest nutritional value, but confirmed that soil fertility is decreasing. We said years agothat soil fertility would be damaged by the policy on manure and now believe that the law needs

some adjustment.

Blokker points the finger at changes in the soil, which damage the crops. Why is there an

explosion of diabetes in the Netherlands? he asks. Because we are undernourished. Diabetes is

well on the way to becoming public illness number one.

The Dutch laboratories studying the soil, such as the BLGG and the ALNN, confirm that the

mineral content is below minimum target levels.

Peter Takens, adviser to the Vereniging tot Behoud Boer en Milieu, adds:

Tables published by the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (Government

Institute for Public Health and Environment RIVM) show that the health of products

grown in our soil is dropping fast. In good soil a great deal of oxygen is required for an

optimum conversion of nutrition for the plant. In our oxygen-poor soil, nitrogen is converted

to dinitrogen monoxide (nitrous oxide/laughing gas), which is to a considerable degree

responsible for the greenhouse effect and thus global warming. Laughing gas causes three

hundred times the damage caused by CO2.


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Obligatory injection of manure fatal for our cattle

- Saturday 19th April 2008, De Telegraafnational daily

- by Richard van de Crommert

Utrecht The Dutch dairy farmers are seeing damage to the health and resistance todisease of their cattle. Vets are finding it difficult to identify the causes. The farmers areafraid that it is one of the consequences of the obligatory injection of liquid manure, which

leads to poor soils and to a diminution in the quality of the grass. And that has consequen -ces not only for the cows health but also for the quality of the milk.

No fewer than 40% of all dairy farmers are seeing calves with diarrhoea, says beef cattle farmer

Herman Beeker. Take a look at the cattle markets. Its enough to make you weep.

Chris van den Anker in the province of Utrecht has seen fourteen of his cattle die as a result of the

changes in the soil. We spent ages looking for what was wrong with my cows , says the dairy

farmer. We even called in the people from the Hogeschool Utrecht. Finally the Health Inspec-

torate suggested that my cows are suffering from slijtersziekte (wasting disease), a kind of um-

brella term for unclear symptoms.

He would far prefer not to have to perform the obligatory manure injection procedure, and occa-

sionally he tries to manure his fields using the old method, with the muck spreader. This causes

the manure to penetrate the ground more slowly and feed the soil rather than poison it. But the

General Inspection Service, the Environmental Police and ordinary police do their best to stop

him from doing that.


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Van den Anker has already been hauled into court and found guilty five times. But in recent

times the courts seem to be confused. Some cases have been dragging on for years.

I called in a soil specialist. We took various samples of grass from my land. And it turned

out to be nothing but poison. By spreading the manure above ground Im doing something

forbidden by law, but at least its not simply bad for the soil.

Manure injection puts two poisonous substances into the soil: sulphite and nitrite:

We dairy farmers are therefore obliged to use a method that kills our animals in the worst

case scenario. We are obliged to pollute our land from which our cows eat the grass and

from which people indirectly drink the milk. Try justifying that.

Over the past ten years there have been more than three hundred court cases based on above-

ground spreading of manure. But there have never been any studies done. For this reason the

Utrecht district court has, in a few cases, not pursued the farmers involved.

Not much is known about the consequences for Dutch milk. Our milk is tested for protein, but

not for the presence of minerals, says Van den Anker.

Various sources allege that one dairy factory in Friesland is not always able to kill of all bacteria

by pasteurisation, leading to the rejection of litres of milk.

On Wednesday, together with an article about lack of vitamins and minerals, we published the

Vitamin C content of a number of vegetables. The figures were taken directly from official publi-

cations of the Consumers Association and the Nutrition Centre (Nevo). However the Consumers

Association states that its figures concerning the Vitamin C content of vegetables should not be

compared to Nevos figures. We measure vegetables from the supermarket. Nevo measures ve-

getables directly fresh from the land.

This is a remarkable statement on the part of the Consumers Association , says Paul Blokker of

the Vereniging van Behoud van Boer en Milieu. Because Nevo just happens to have taken thefigures of the Consumers Association and used them in its own tables. The 2006 Nevo table has

exactly the same vitamin values for most vegetables, and Nevo states that the figures are from the

Consumers Association.

Spreading manure

secrets ecological farming revealed – hubert_luns

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